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breaking news

Mark Richt may need nametags to remember his fellow ACC coaches

The view from the Amelia Island Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the site of the conference's spring meetings. (AmeliaIsland.com)

AMELIA ISLAND — Mark Richt was once a young graduate assistant at Florida State named “Buddy.” That’s what Bobby Bowden called him, because he couldn’t remember his name. He wasn’t the only Buddy on staff, either.

The view from the Amelia Island Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the site of the conference’s spring meetings. (AmeliaIsland.com)

Richt soon became one of Bowden’s most trusted coaches, but at first, he was just a face without a name. Richt is in a similar boat this week as he gets to know his new ACC colleagues at the conference’s spring meetings.

“Some of the guys I don’t know very well at all,” Richt said, referring to the football coaches. “A lot of guys I’ve known but don’t know well, I guess you could say. I’m meeting new athletic directors, new men’s and women’s basketball coaches.

“I ran into someone, she said hello — I forgot her name now, but she’s with the ACC offices. She said, ‘Don’t worry, we won’t give you a test at the end. We know you’re meeting a lot of new people.’

“I said, ‘I don’t even know the names of all our players yet, that’s why we put all their names on their helmets right now.’ I may do that into the fall,” he said, laughing.

Per UM AD Blake James, Richt has discretion over which, if any, satellite camps UM may attend. Richt said he hasn’t made up his mind on that front.

“We’re evaluating whether we should or not,” Richt said. “I’m not ready to say one way or another. I’m getting calls left and right — ‘Come here, come here, come here, come here, we’re doing this,’ then one school’s like, ‘Hey, we could do it on your campus, the U.’ Nah, I don’t think we’ll be doing that. That one, I can tell you. We won’t be sharing our campus with another school, that’s for sure. We’ll have our own camps. Whether or not we go to another one is another story.”